Most Silver Age readers best remember Beppo as one of the Legion of Super-Pets (along with Krypto the SuperDog, Streaky the Super-Cat, Comet the Super-Horse, and later, the shapeshifting splotch of goo named Proty). Though long retired from the pages of comics, in the mid2000s the Silver Age Beppo the Super-Monkey was immortalized as a plush doll and an action figure by DC’s toy-manufacturing wing, DC © 2007 DC Comics. Direct. Beppo has a counterpart in contemporary DC continuity: Beppo the SuperChimp, the non-Kryptonian cohort of Metropolis performer Crackers the Clown; this Beppo debuted in Action Comics #668 (Aug. 1991). Some readers who saw Superboy #76’s cover might’ve felt a twinge of déjà vu, and understandably so: Beppo was a retread of Bongo, a red-caped, red-briefed (or was that a diaper?) chimp that appeared in the title almost five years earlier in the story “Public Chimp Number One!” in Superboy #38 (Jan. 1955). In that tale, Bongo was a Zippy-like (keep reading) TV star-turnedSuperboy buffoon. Writer Grant Morrison and artist © 2007 DC Comics. Frank Quietly kept alive the tradition of apes in capes in All Star Superman #5 (Sept. 2006) by introducing Leopold, Lex Luthor’s pet baboon (in a Superman costume). BLIP Second banana? Try third in Blip’s case, since this monkey is the sidekick to two sidekicks. When TV toon-titans Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera introduced Space Ghost in during the super-hero-frenzied year of 1966 (on the CBS show Space Ghost and Dino Boy, featuring character designs by the awesome Alex Toth), Blip, the pet to teen sidekicks Jan and Jace, was there to provide the impish-butadorable factor crucial to so many H-B cartoons. He also pulled Space Ghost’s and the kids’ fannies out of the fire—many times—by sneaking, while invisible (via his inviso-power belt), past the villain of the episode and either freeing the heroes or retrieving Space Ghost’s stolen power bands. Plus, he was a cute little monkey wearing a cute little super-hero costume— including a mask! There weren’t many masked monkeys running around in 1966! Blip was window dressing in the few Space Ghost comic-
book appearances that followed the show’s launch, starting with Gold Key Comics’ 1967 Space Ghost one-shot drawn by Dan Spiegle. He finally made it to the cover of a comic on 1987’s Space Ghost #1, written by Mark Evanier, drawn by Steve Rude and Willie Blyberg, and published by Comico. Evanier and Rude’s oneshot recreated the feel of the animated series, with an invisible Blip adding a mostvaluable-primate assist to the heroes. Once Space Ghost became a TV talk-show host on Space Ghost This is one of only three panels featuring Blip Coast to Coast, from this 5-page Space Ghost tale by Mark poor Blip was Evanier and Alex Toth. From Marvel Comics’ forgotten… until late-1970s Hanna-Barbera line. DC Comics’ © 2007 Hanna-Barbera. Courtesy of Jerry Ordway. Cartoon Network Presents #8 (Mar. 1998), when the monkey enlisted other H-B apes (Magilla Gorilla, © 2007 DC Comics. Igoo, Dial M for Monkey, and So-So) for a Space Ghost-andcompany rescue mission. BONZO THE MARVEL MONKEY Back in the ’50s DC Comics, publisher of Superman, successfully sued Fawcett Comics, publisher of Captain Marvel, and the “copycat” Cap was forced into retirement. Once DC acquired publishing rights for Captain Marvel in the ’70s, the publisher copied its own Beppo the Super-Monkey by introducing Bonzo the Marvel Monkey in Shazam! vol. 1 #9 (Jan. 1974). “The Day Captain Marvel Went Ape!”, by Elliot S! Maggin and C. C. Beck, featured the chimpanzee Bonzo, star of his own TV show, who by a quirk of fate got super-powers (and an adorable li’l Captain Marvel suit) when Billy Batson, Cap’s youthful alter ego, said his powers-inducing magic word “Shazam!”